> On the whole, agile and scrum work well and are executed properly at most companies, but I've just had some bad luck.
Not a chance -- your experience mirrors mine over the course of the six or so companies that I've worked for. It's definitely #2.
They all fail in very similar ways: story points become hours/days; stand-ups devolve from status updates to daily team discussions; the backlog becomes irrelevant because new stories are created for each sprint; and, in companies which report velocity to senior management, story-point inflation.
Also, I've noticed that Agile transformations always create Agile zealots within the organization which seem to act to quell dissent. I'm not sure why this is, maybe the transformations are tied to bonuses or something, but it's a universal thing. There's always somebody running around telling you that you're team is Doing It Wrong when you bring up any legitimate criticisms of the process.
See:
> It's like communism; it only works if you "do it correctly."
Not a chance -- your experience mirrors mine over the course of the six or so companies that I've worked for. It's definitely #2.
They all fail in very similar ways: story points become hours/days; stand-ups devolve from status updates to daily team discussions; the backlog becomes irrelevant because new stories are created for each sprint; and, in companies which report velocity to senior management, story-point inflation.
Also, I've noticed that Agile transformations always create Agile zealots within the organization which seem to act to quell dissent. I'm not sure why this is, maybe the transformations are tied to bonuses or something, but it's a universal thing. There's always somebody running around telling you that you're team is Doing It Wrong when you bring up any legitimate criticisms of the process.
See:
> It's like communism; it only works if you "do it correctly."